Adventure with an Ostrich Egg

As an avowed egg lover, it was inevitable that I would one day come across what is THE mother of all eggs, the ostrich egg. The largest egg in the world, it reaches weights of up to five pounds. (Excellent for doing bicep curls with.) It’s approximately 5-6 inches in diameter and 6-7 inches tall. Its shell is about 1/8th of an inch thick and is tough enough to sustain the weight of a 300-pound ostrich sitting on it.

pick on someone your own size

When I saw ostrich eggs in the chiller at Rustan’s Supermarket, I excitedly scooped one up and held it. I expected it to be heavy (which it was) but what I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer intricacy of its shell, beautiful and porcelain-like. At P685 each, it wasn’t the price that had me worried but how on earth would I open it?

size matters

A flurry of text messages I sent and received from my chef-friends yielded a whole host of answers:

“…get a hammer and whack the bejesus out of it.” (No! I want to save the shell for posterity.)

And one silly answer: “At P685, open it very carefully. Hahahah!” (Oh yeah, you’re a big help.)

bow before me, o little ones

After an evening of research, I decide to open the egg by drilling a hole through it. Giddy with excitement, I tell my sisters about it and am met with dramatic eye-rolls. “Geez Lor, I’ve never heard anyone get so excited about buying an egg before,” one of them comments wryly.

Egg Day Although made of pure calcium, the shell feels like fine ceramic. Very popular for crafts, the hard shell can be engraved or even painted on. Food wise, a single ostrich egg is equivalent to 24 (2 dozen) chicken eggs. It only takes one ostrich egg to fill up a 12-inch frying pan to the brim. Already, I’m having magnificent visions of a gigantic sunny-side up egg or a whopping plate of scrambled eggs good enough to serve ten people for Sunday brunch.

But first I have to get the egg open.

drilling away

I’ve always been proud that my Bin is handy with tools — I’ve never had to call a handyman when it comes to getting things fixed around the house. Bright and early on Sunday morning, he comes down to the kitchen armed with his Black & Decker electric drill and his mountain-biking gloves (?). Carefully laying the egg in the middle of a large bowl, he begins to drill, the grating noise piercing the stark silence of a Sunday.

“Papa, it’s so loud!” Boo shrieks, running from the kitchen, her hands covering her ears.

you can see the specks of eggshell “dust”

It takes some drilling before we’re even able to pierce the rock-hard exterior. Once a hole has been made, I excitedly grab the egg from my Bin and turn it upside down, shaking it all the while. A few feeble dribbles of egg white come out, but then the flow ceases after a few seconds. “I’ll have to drill a larger or another hole,” Bin surmises.

2 holes but still no egg

3 final holes

We end up having to drill three holes all in all before the yolk even begins to show itself, coming out in drips and one big glob. I’m desperate to keep the yolk intact so I suggest banging the poor egg with a hammer. But my Bin talks me out of it saying that an intact shell would allow me more bragging rights. Oh, ha.

finally!

out with thy yolk!

out of its shell

When all of the egg is out, it fills up my entire 2-quart mixing bowl. I have what appears to be two enormous yolks and a mass of egg white. Rubbing it gently between my fingers, the white doesn’t feel as slippery as a regular chicken egg does.

Get a pan that’s big enough

a massive ostrich egg sunny-side up

Because the egg didn’t come out whole (does it ever, I wonder?) dashed are my hopes of a magnificent sunny-side up. Making the best of what I have, I ladle most of the yolk onto a hot frying pan. Taking about eight minutes to cook on medium-low heat, I garnish the ostrich fried egg with a sprinkling of fine sea salt.

ostrich egg scrambled eggs

I scramble the remainder of the eggs, although it’s quite pale in color since I’ve robbed it of its yolk(s). Even without the addition of milk or cream, they cook up in about 12 minutes, creamy and smooth, little curds which I top off with salt and some butter. And yes, the largest pan I own, which is a 10-inch nonstick, is filled almost to the brim.

My Bin and I along with Boo, sit down to our Sunday brunch of ostrich egg done two ways ”“ scrambled and sunny-side up, country bread, and a banana-dark chocolate chip baked pancake that I had whipped up earlier.

What does an ostrich egg taste like? Just like your regular chicken egg. But much bigger, of course. Next time I may just try soft-boiling an ostrich egg.

Comments

I’ve seen ostrich meat in the grocery homegrown down south in Cagayan de Oro … wonder if these are local or not. At least the next time you need to separate two dozen yolks from whites for a huge batch of souffles or other baked goods, you only need to work your way through one of these monsters (proceeding with much caution). =)

Never thought Ostrich egg can be bought locally…you sure are an eggventure person. With a size like that…I rather let it stay the way it is…and see if it can hatch with me sitting on it =)ha ha ha. Thanks for sharing…if ever I crave for such egg, now I know how to crack it.

yay! egg open & scrambled…reminds me of the roadblock for the Amazing Race in Africa, where the contestants had to wolf down a whole scrambled ostrich egg. to get the whole yolk, i think you’d have to break the shell. and to soft boil the egg, maybe you’d need approx 30-45 mins? (heard somewhere it takes an hour to hard boil an ostrich egg)

There are local ostrich farms in Mindanao. I hear ostrich meat is also a good low-fat low carb option.

I do wonder if the shell bits drilled into the holes don’t add a certain, um, grittiness, when cooking. I guess if you wanted a sunny side up ostrich egg, you’d have to give it a couple or more gentle whacks and forego the shell.

Monster ostrich eggs! Yikes. I remember watching on a TV show before (from waaaay back, remember Great Chefs of the World from Discovery Channel when Sky Cable first came out?)—that a man poured the egg into massive iron skillet, mixed with cream, some veggies (can’t remember which) and he slow roasted it over a pan. It kinda looked like how people traditionally cooked paella.

Those eggs look great in the afternoon sun Lori! Why not try an ostrich egg benedict next time. =) hehe

I wonder how ostrich chicks get out of that hard shell without a drill to help them. Of course I know egg shells are easier to break from inside. It just looks so formidable, must be a third of an inch thick!

yummy!! will be waiting for your post on that soft boiled ostrich egg… i just love soft boiled eggs! wonder how many persons can really finish a whole ostrich egg??? did you and your bin and boo finish the whole batch in one sitting? “diba nakakalaki ng ulo yun?” hope your cholesterol didn’t shoot up!! great pics!!

i’m wondering if there will be a time when ostrich eggs will be as widely availabe that you’ll find them in one dozen boxes at the grocery. i think there was an episode of the amazing race or fear factor where they cracked/emptied a whole ostrich egg into a pitcher and a contestant had to down the whole thing. raw. i wanted to hurl. a local lifestyle store in greenbelt 3 has actually made a name for itself with their ostrich egg lamps. they drill holes at opposite ends of the eggs… somehow they manage to fix a lightbulb on the top part and they attach huge tassles at the bottom. ingenious!

This post is so precious! I was smiling the whole time while reading it and looking at the pictures! I had no idea ostrich eggs were available in supermarkets. How were they displayed? Surely not in those cardboard by-the-dozen boxes?!

The first picture’s my favorite; reminds me of a model of the solar system, albeit an incomplete one. 😉

Jazminator: HAHAHA! With our recipe, 1 ostrich egg = 2 leche flans since we use a dozen yolks. The question is, as wysgal mentioned, HOW does one separate the yolk from the white?

I eagerly await your attempt to make a proper sunny-side-up or boiled ostrich egg. The pics would surely look awesome!

i know how much you love your eggs but that is one heck of an egg!!! aakkk. reminds me of an episode of amazing race–when they were in africa & 1 team member had to eat one whole egg and boy, were they so full of…egg.

thats so cool !!!! question : how many days did it take you to finish the whole thing ??

and how many people eat it before it was done ??

i’m doing a project on ostrich eggs and “googled” it think not much would turn up but there are thousands of pages some with paintings , carvings, even lamps made out of ostrich eggs! so i was just wondering because your the first site so far that has actually EATEN an ostrich egg

Anonymous: There are only 3 people in my family. We stopped eating after the 2nd day because let’s face it, one ostrich egg is equal to 22 eggs. Even I, the egg lover, couldn’t deal with eggs for that long.